


Five Times Bucky and Clint Gave Phil a Headache, and One Time He Gave Them One

by seikaitsukimizu



Series: Strike Team Delta AU [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Phil Coulson, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Fanboy Phil Coulson, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hydra (Marvel), POV Phil Coulson, Phil Coulson & Nick Fury Friendship, Phil Coulson Has the Patience of a Saint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-14 00:28:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5722768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seikaitsukimizu/pseuds/seikaitsukimizu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the Winter Soldier suffered a cognitive re-calibration years ago, and it was all because of Hawkeye? What if he was brought into SHIELD, under the supervision of one Phil Coulson? What if a handler and his two agents became a legendary STRIKE team? </p>
<p>AKA</p>
<p>Phil is the handler for the Winter Soldier and Hawkeye at SHIELD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Bucky and Clint Gave Phil a Headache, and One Time He Gave Them One

When Phil was a teenager, he was one of the ones that always got into trouble. Not the ‘staying out past curfew’ and ‘smoking beneath the bleachers’ trouble, more the ‘stealing a ferrari across state lines’ and ‘running a gambling ring’ trouble. As far as he was concerned, he was badass, gave zero shits, and fuck the world’s expectations of someone like him. 

Until he cheated an ROTC frat on a bet. That...did not end well. Though it did set him on the straight and narrow again.

Suffice to say, Phil is well aware he may be due some karmic retribution for those troublesome teenage years. 

For a while, he thought it might be the man currently named Nick Fury, who he’d met on the wrong side of an op and they’d nearly beat each other to death. And then they met again. And again. And somewhere between the third broken hand and the sixth black eye they’d become friends. 

Then, he thought it might be Clint Barton, who was annoying and troublesome and in some ways reminded Phil too much of himself when he was far younger. A harder childhood, but good beneath it all. The man gave SHIELD the slip for a year, and should’ve been captured when Phil shot him in the leg. Nick had to bail him out of that one. Losing a mercenary literally on his last leg…

Discovering that James ‘Bucky’ Barnes was alive could’ve been it. The seemingly endless nightmares, the pain of watching this war hero have to rediscover himself, of hearing how Hydra broke him down piece by piece and turned him into a mindless weapon. It wasn’t the same, but it  _ felt _ like some sort of punishment, to have this man lay himself bare and be terrified of asking about his own past. 

All that said and done, though, none of those were the universe’s attempt at paying him back for being an arrogant shithead when he was a kid. No. It had decided to retaliate with something  _ far _ more annoying. 

“Hey, Coulson?”

Phil slows his stride so Agent Sitwell can catch up to him. The man’s a level behind Phil right now, and Nick’s asked him to keep an eye out, see if he’s Level Seven material or not. “Agent Sitwell.”

Adjusting his glasses, the man offers an amused smirk. “So, there’s a bit of a mess in the canteen on floor five.”

Wrong floor for new agents, but too low for Level Six and above. “Another staged protest for non-vegetarian options, or outrage at the lack of someone’s favorite food?” They’d had both in the past few years, strangely more of the former than the latter; something he hadn’t expected with exhausted, wound up, occasionally trigger-happy agents. 

“No, no. Nothing so mundane.” Sitwell has his hands in his pockets and a little smirk on his face. Amusing and eager and trying to bite back whatever it is he knows. 

With a silent sigh, Phil calls for the elevator and raises his eyebrow at the man. “Fire suppression go off? Exploding crockery? Extremely busy agent taunted by a junior to the point of bloodshed?”

Clearing his throat, Sitwell dials his enthusiasm down a notch. “Agent Barton and Agent Barnes finally met up.”

The elevator opens and Phil steps in, Sitwell following a second later. “I’m aware. Barton was the one who brought Barnes in. I encouraged Barnes to meet up with him again. I figure they’ve got some talking to do.” He hits the floor for Nick’s office, then turns to stare Sitwell down.

“I, eh, wouldn’t mention that to the Director if I were you.”

Phil pauses at that, and feels a slight twinge behind his left temple. “Agent Sitwell, what  _ exactly  _ is the ‘mess’ on the fifth floor canteen?”

“Well,” Sitwell clears his throat again, “apparently there was something about pie stealing. And kicking. And then Barton called for reinforcements.”

“He didn’t,” Phil deadpans.

Sitwell nods emphatically. “He did.”

That twinge turns into a full thrum in his head. “And  _ why _ , exactly, did anyone jump in to help Agent Barton during a food fight?”

“There may have been mention of archery lessons.” Sitwell’s eyes focus on the wall behind Phil’s shoulder. “Nude archery lessons.”

Phil shuts his eyes and pinches the top of his nose, trying to fight back the painful pulse behind his forehead. 

Sitwell waits a beat before adding, “Then Barnes offered to reveal to anyone who helped him the secret truth on just how well proportioned Captain America’s-”

“In other words,” Phil interrupts, “they convinced well-trained, highly intelligent, sophisticated agents to make a mess of the canteen using sex appeal.”

“Yes, sir.” A pause. “And the hallway just beyond it. And the bathrooms. And, apparently, the air ducts.”

Phil breathes out slowly through his nose and opens his eyes in time for the elevator to arrive and find Nick standing there waiting for him. His one eye is boring into him, and if it were any other occasion, Phil would probably joke about the man trying to look intimidating while holding a mop. 

He’s not half bad at it, actually. 

A full blown headache now throbbing against his skull, he takes the mop from the man’s hand and nods. The elevator doors close and Phil can tell Sitwell’s not sure if he should laugh or cower from Phil. 

Rather than let him figure it out, he orders, “I want all agents who took part in my office.  _ Yesterday. _ ”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

(It takes two hours to track down Clint and Barnes. Another thirty minutes to get them to actually go in and clean the mess they made. 

To deflect the annoyance of their accomplices, they offer to clean the cafeteria all by themselves. Phil’s actually rather proud of that. Until he checks on them a little later and discovers Clint has stripped down to his skivvies and Barnes is recounting his more sordid adventures with Captain America. 

No one else is getting any work done. 

God damned  _ karma. _ )

* * *

Three years ago, as a reward for a difficult mission and in an effort to help him relax, Fury had sent him to DC with a broken wrist, bruised ribs, and six weeks to help put together the perfect exhibit for Captain America. Officially, he was the liaison designated to design and provide security measures for the equipment being newly released from the SSR archives. Unofficially, Phil fired two ‘expert historians’ within the first day and essentially took over the project. 

The curator had been hysterical then, too, until Phil showed him his plans for the exhibit. The old one, the one that had inspired Phil to take up his collection in college, was still potent, still powerful. Phil knew he could make it amazing. And, because he always gives his all to any project, he did. He revamped the entire wing to the point that he’d had half the museum board begging him to leave his job to revolutionize the entire Smithsonian. 

And it was a tempting offer, until Barton had shown up with a black eye and a smile, gaze lingering on Phil’s injured hand guiltily. As annoying as the man was, Phil certainly couldn’t leave him to the other junior agents. The archer didn’t trust easily, and despite the antagonism, a departure would wreck the bond that had been built between Hawkeye and SHIELD. 

So he’d shown off the exhibit to his agent, declined the rather generous job offer from the curator, and got back to work at SHIELD. In all honesty, he’d never expected to hear from them again. Later, he’d discovered Fury had pulled more strings than he’d let on getting Phil that position, and Phil ended up burning a few bridges unknowingly when he’d taken over the project entirely.

He hasn’t even thought about that time until, seven months after Clint and Barnes’ introduction, Phil receives a call at three in the morning. He’s immediately awake and alert, expecting to hear Fury or Hill or even Sitwell calling over an emergency issue. He’s used to receiving calls at all hours, whether he has a mission the next day or not, since he’s their go-to expert on contingency planning. 

The man shouting hysterically at him through the phone is most definitely not a SHIELD agent. He is, instead, the curator of the Smithsonian. 

For a minute, Phil deliberates just hanging up. He’s a god-damned Level Seven agent and so does not need this shit on his day off. His professional pride rears its head, though, and roughly he barks out, “Take a deep breath and start over, Richard.”

He has to repeat that instruction twice more before he’s pinching the bridge of his nose and throwing the covers back to trudge to his dining room table where he left his laptop. “Email me the videos and images. Yes, I know you want me there. I have other duties--I’m not taking this lightly.” He keeps the frustrated growl to himself. “Just send me the information, I’ll call you when I have something.” 

He collapses into his seat and rubs a hand over his face before he powers up the computer. It only takes a few minutes for him to pull up the evidence they’re sending him, and he can’t help but frown at it. Someone has gone through the entire exhibit, in a two-hour window, and vandalized everything. Well, not exactly  _ vandalized _ . More...displaced. 

As in, someone removed all the glass coverings carefully, apparently picked up and put down every piece of the exhibit, then replaced the protective cases. The items are still all there, just no longer meticulously displayed as they were a few hours ago. Even more strange, absolutely nothing appears to be missing. 

_ That’s not quite right _ , Phil realizes as he squints at the display of Captain America’s uniform. The uniform is adjusted, shifted, but the dog tags laying atop the chest are just a tad too shiny, a bit too undented to be the  _ actual _ tags once belonging to Steve Rogers. In fact, if he had to guess, those were one of the mimic sets sold in the gift shop, just slightly dirtied up. An easy thing to overlook with the focus on the entire exhibit, a detail that might not be found until days, weeks...hell, if it wasn’t him looking, Phil isn’t sure the replacement would have ever been found out. 

He  _ did _ spend an inordinate amount of time staring at them, after all. The first time he held them there’d been a flutter in his chest, and frankly, they were his favorite relic of the entire exhibit. 

And now, someone stole them. Someone able to set the security feeds on a loop, disable all the alarms, and wasn’t interested in taking any of the more valuable items scattered about the wing. 

He knows of only a handful of people with the skills and capabilities to tackle a project of this magnitude and speed. Two of them have, unfortunately, led to him doing a lot more paperwork and placating a lot more agents over unannounced target practice in the hallways and impromptu ambushes on junior agents. Both, obsentably, to test said agents’ reflexes, but mostly it appears to be a form of bonding. 

A form a bonding that always,  _ always _ , gives Phil a headache. 

This, though, this is taking it to a _ whole _ new level. 

It’s nearly six in the morning when he gets to SHIELD, and he isn’t surprised to find both culprits eating breakfast in the senior agents’ canteen. Granted, neither of them are Level Seven, but the other agents had learned years ago such rules didn’t apply--or rather,the regulations didn’t  _ matter _ \--to Clint. And Barnes...no one wanted to risk challenging him despite how affable he is.

Phil has to roll his eyes mentally at how people still think the Winter Soldier will emerge in a snap. Even now, the table the two are sitting at has no one else sitting nearby. 

Without even stopping to get coffee, he sits across from the two and stares at them. Clint stares back with a defiant grin, while Barnes meets his eyes unflinchingly. The missing dog tags are blatantly hanging around his neck, no hint of him trying to hide his ill-gotten gains. They have a silent standoff for four minutes before Phil steals Clint’s cup of coffee and downs it in one go. 

“Aw, coffee, no!”

Phil firmly sets the empty glassware down and gives the archer a narrow-eyed look. The man attempts to look annoyed and innocent, while his gaze is casting around, identifying the quickest exits from the room. After another moment, he decides to kick Clint in the ankles, hard. The man flinches and mutters, but finally ducks his head and doesn’t look like he’s about to bolt any more. 

When Phil turns his attention to Barnes, the man’s face has closed off, but keeps a hint of a challenge. They have a strange relationship, and Phil knows, in some way, Barnes is testing what he can and can’t get away with. Despite all their hard work, the fear of punishment, of how SHIELD will treat him, runs deep. The last thing Phil wants is to evoke that. 

So he lets his shoulders drop and sighs frustratedly, rubbing his forehead. When Barnes’ muscles relax, Phil finally says, “You could have just asked.”

“We were drinking and the whole thing was a bit...spontaneous,” Clint fesses up quietly. 

“Didn’t want to wake you,” comes from Barnes. 

Phil lets out a huff. “Courteous, but I was still awoken before dawn by the Smithsonian.” That has both of them wincing. “I wasn’t supposed to come in today.” This time, they flinch. Phil knows they’re aware of how precious few days off he gets. 

“Sorry,” they say almost unanimously. 

Phil nods and raps the table with his knuckles. “Good enough.” 

As he moves to stand, Clint asks incredulously, “That’s all?” 

“That’s all,” Phil confirms. Then adds, “And range privileges are revoked for two weeks.”

“Damnit,” Clint mutters. 

Barnes keeps watching him, then reaches up to touch the dog tags with his flesh hand. “I can…?”

Phil doesn’t have to hide the smile. He wasn’t lying when he said they could’ve just asked. “They’re where they belong.”

He’ll never admit it, but the unrepressed gratitude in Barnes’ eyes almost makes the whole thing worth it.

(“I hear you spent your day off updating the security at the Smithsonian,” Nick says the following afternoon. 

“Is my life really that more interesting than running SHIELD,” Phil deadpans.

“Hell yes! You got the terror twins to apologize. I lost fifty bucks because of that.”

Unable to hide his horror, Phil says, “Never say that in front of them. You’ll give them  _ ideas. _ ”

“See?” Nick replies with a smirk. “ _ Way _ more interesting.”)

* * *

Their first mission as Strike Team Delta, one year after Clint had brought Barnes in, goes exactly as Phil expects. That is to say, it becomes a shitstorm in the time it takes from parking their car to walking into the safehouse. It wasn’t an intelligence failure, or even them being lax in their duties. It was, unfortunately enough, sheer coincidence that the SHIELD safe house was, literally, next to small cult’s home. 

A cult’s home that decided to conduct their ritual suicide that day. 

All it took was a random news camera catching Barnes’ profile in the background and all three of them end up running from the Hydra cell they’d come to eradicate. Which, of course, also brought the local and in-town federal authorities on their tail too. 

It was like a French farce, the punchline being Phil’s face when he dove into a trash pile to avoid a gun shot. 

Fortunately their second mission goes a lot more smoothly, or at least, as smooth as a mission can go with both Clint Barton  _ and  _ Bucky Barnes involved. “Speak to me, agents.”

_ “The voice in my head tells me to speak,”  _ Clint cries out. He’s currently in a mental facility. Officially, as a patient. Unofficially, he’s undercover because SHIELD suspects the facility of conducting super soldier experiments on its patients.  _ “It tells me your walls are a terrible off-shade of white and purple, purple is the way to heal from the walls!” _

_ “He won’t shut up about the purple,”  _ Barnes mutters from his position. He was able to hack into the security system and is about five-hundred feet away in a nearby building, ready to sneak in or start shooting, whichever is needed. 

Phil holds in his sigh. “Anything else, agent?”

_ “The head doctor,”  _ through the commandeered cameras, he sees Clint is whispering to a fellow patient,  _ “he doesn’t understand. The importance of color in healing. He’s such an asshole. But he makes the voice in my head make sense, you know?”  _ Phil can’t hear the patient’s response, but he can hear Clint’s smile when he says,  _ “Yes, exactly!”  _

_ “He’s having way way too much fun with this.” _

“He just misses the limelight from his circus days,” Phil says smoothly, and lets himself grin slightly at Clint’s furrowed brow. “Remind me to show you that picture I have of him in tights.”

_ “Although when the voice makes sense, sometimes  _ it’s _ mean now, too. Traitor voice. Begone! Until you can appreciate the genius of purple!” _

Phil rolls his eyes and turns off his mic.

A few hours later, Barnes breaks the silence with,  _ “I moved to the northern building. Better sightlines to the supposed lab. Still can’t get past the second firewall. _ ”

“Do you want me to call in a tech?”

_ “Negative.”  _ A pause.  _ “Do you think they’ll select him?” _

“He’s physically fit, has no family, and annoys the hell out of them. I think they’ll see him as a perfect candidate.”

_ “That food fight was inspired.” _

“That food fight triggered a flashback.” Barnes doesn’t reply, but Phil can sense the man’s smirk from the radio. 

It’s nearly one in the morning when Clint’s voice carries over the speaks.  _ “Hey! My voice told me there’d be no visitors tonight! That lying son of a-” _

_ “Not to worry, Mister Barton. You won’t be hearing that voice any more. _ ”

Phil straightens immediately in his chair and starts checking the cameras. They hadn’t provided Clint’s real name to the intake officers. “Soldier-”

_ “Already moving in.” _

_ “Who’s Barton?” _ Clint lies, keeping in character.  _ “The voice in my head-” _

_ “Won’t hear you anymore.”  _ Then there’s a screech that has Phil wincing at the piece in his ear goes silent. 

_ “Approaching facility. I’ll have him out in five minutes.” _

“Wait for backup,” Phil orders, already putting in the call on his phone. It’s only after he’s typed in his confirmation code that he realizes Barnes hasn’t replied. “Soldier, confirm: wait for backup.”  More silence. “Winter Soldier, respond.” 

Still nothing, and Phil has a gut feeling it  _ isn’t _ because he’s being insubordinate. He’s getting zero sounds from his earpiece, and SHIELD is at least seven minutes out. 

A lot can happen in seven minutes, and Phil’s not about to let any of it happen to his agents, especially Barnes. He’s out of the van like a shot and crosses the two block distance in a minute. Leaping over the stone wall is a bit more difficult, but no one’s focusing on intruders, at least not that far out. 

Pulling out his gun, he ducks behind a tree on the facility’s grounds and looks towards the east wing. Just outside, he sees Barnes struggling to get up off the grass. Six men surround him, two with cattle prods. One touch to his metal arm and he’s falling again, spasming. 

Six men. Of twenty, based on the bodies lying about. They  _ knew _ who they were, and what would be needed to take down the Winter Soldier. Phil mentally curses that intelligence leak and takes aim. Four of them are focusing on picking Barnes up, so Phil’s first two shots take out the men with cattle prods. He’s dashing forward as the other four are trying to find him. Three more are down before the last grabs a prod and holds it to Barnes’ temple. 

Phil keeps aiming at the man, staring him down from ten feet away. 

“Drop it, or I fry his brain,” the man snarls. 

“You say that as if that’s not your plan.” Phil keeps his voice steady. “You’re after the serum, and I’m afraid I can’t let you take it from my friend.” The man’s eyes widen as he realizes Phil’s not going to negotiate, which is when Phil pulls the trigger. The orderly is on the ground with a bullet between his eyes and Phil’s kneeling beside Barnes a moment later. “Soldier.” That gets him a groan. “Sergeant Barnes, report.”

“Nnng.” 

Glancing quickly at the entrance, he knows he has a minute at most before more orderlies--or mercenaries--come for them. SHIELD is still four minutes out, and Clint’s status is still unknown. Trying to move Barnes would leave them both exposed, and entering what’s sure to be a killzone will leave both his assets unattended. 

_ Shit. _

All he can do is hope SHIELD gets here in time. Picking up a cattle prod, he carefully gets down on the ground, going as lax as he can with his eyes slitted open. He tucks the hand with the gun beneath another orderly’s armpit, and keeps his breaths as shallow as possible. 

He may not be able to hold off twenty more men, but he can take a hell of a lot of them down if they think he’s just another corpse. 

It’s not a moment too soon. He hears pounding from the building and then a bunch of men run out. Only...those aren’t orderlies. Those...those look like patients. And then someone’s kneeling over him, and it takes a minute to hear, “Coulson! Fuck, fuck, Phil, come on, please don’t be-”

“Barton.” He says, fully opening his eyes. “I’m fine.”

“Sir-”

“Playing possum,” he says, pushing himself up and looking around. “Status?”

“Doc’s pinned to the wall by his shoulder. Set the inmates free, which threw the orderlies for a loop.” Clint’s eyes are tracking down his body, examining him for any injuries before nodding and checking the area again. “Still some hostiles.” There’s the noise of squealing tires and the engines of vans. “Backup?”

“Backup.” Phil’s drops the cattle prod to reach for Barnes’ pulse. It’s there, steady, but the man’s unconscious and shows no signs of waking. “Your status?”

“Bruised, broken rib.” Phil shoots him a look for not reporting that immediately. Clint shrugs. “Had worse. How’s...is he…?”

“Stable, I think.” When he turns his attention fully to Clint again, the man is eyeing his now grass stained and filthy suit. “What?”

“You were worried.” At Phil’s raised eyebrow, Clint nods to the vans. “You didn’t wait to come in with backup.”

“I’m not allowed to worry about my assets?”

“Of course, sir.” There’s a small grin on Clint’s face. “Just glad to see we’re worth you breaking protocol.”

Phil merely sighs as the SHIELD vehicles pull up behind them. He can just imagine all the ways both of his agents will use this as an excuse to break protocol in the future. It causes a low throbbing pain in his temple. Just in time for the medics to surround them.

(“Here,” Barnes says days later, tossing a set of cards onto his desk.”Clint said you collect them.”

Phil picks them up gently. These will almost complete his collection. “Thank you. Any particular reason?”

“Clint told me what you did. Only one punk’s been stupid enough to come after me like that.” He seems almost shy about admitting it. 

“Agent Barnes, I don’t leave my agents behind.”

Barnes stares at him a moment, then, with a smirk he says, “You know, I wouldn’t mind hearing another punk calling me Bucky.”

“Call me a punk again,” Phil says with his own smirk, “and I’ll have to agree that you really  _ did  _ take all the stupid with you.” He waits a beat. “Bucky.”

Bucky snorts. “Clint’s right. You’re such a little-”

“ _ Bucky! _ ” Comes Clint’s panicked cry from the vent. Phil just shakes his head.)

* * *

New Mexico is not his idea of a good time. Granted, he meets a God of Thunder, and a brilliant scientist, and possibly someone who can unlock the secrets of the Tesseract. But it also involved a giant Stark-like colossus nearly frying him and Clint nearly shooting said God of Thunder during a stormy night. He cannot wait to get the hell out of there. Which is why, when he gets back to Las Cruces, he almost stumbles at the sight of Bucky and Clint sunbathing by the motel pool. 

“I’m almost certain you were in Cambodia.”

“Naw,” Bucky says without opening his eyes, “that was some other agent.”

“Not according to my files.”

“Called in a favor.”

Phil raises an eyebrow. “And you came here?”

“Phil,” Clint’s tone is devastatingly serious, “I got interrupted on my first vacation.”

“I know-”

“First. Vacation. In ten years.”

“Not cool,” Bucky tosses in.

Phil takes a deep cleansing breath. He can’t shoot them here. His extra bullets are in the car. “That doesn’t explain-”

“Coulson,” Clint looks at Phil over the top of his sunglasses. “I’m on vay-cay-tion.” Bucky snorts. “With my best bud. If I want to hang by the pool, I’m gonna hang by the fucking pool.”

“We’re due in Roswell tomorrow. Sitwell is bringing the remains of the armor to be studied.”

“Cool for him.  _ We’re _ ,” he indicates himself and Bucky, “going on a road trip. It may, or may not, involve going to Roswell.”

Phil counts to ten in his head. Then twenty. Then decides it’s too hot to be having this argument. He heads up to the room and takes off the jacket, enjoying what little respite the air conditioning offers. After a minute he picks up the sunscreen and heads back outside, tossing the bottle towards his agents. Bucky catches it automatically. “I’m not rubbing lotion on your back because you forgot to put on protection.”

“Oh Phil, you don’t need excuses to put your hands on me,” Clint purrs, twisting in his lounge chair to stretch enticingly while Bucky smirks.  

“It’s true. Usually you warrent a good strangling just by entering a room.”

“You sweet-talker, you.” 

Phil rolls his eyes and heads back to the suite, hearing Clint and Bucky laugh. He can’t really blame them. After the revelation that John Garrett--a fellow agent, a  _ friend _ \--was Hydra and attempted to abduct Bucky... Nick was furious Hydra was still around after all this time, and the stress of rooting out the other bad apples is getting to all of them. 

Clint took the attempt against Bucky  _ very _ personally, and started stalking all people acting suspicious at SHIELD. Since they were an intelligence agency, that didn’t really go as planned and he ended up being an annoyance more than anything else. Rather than let an incident involving ‘accidental discharge of firearms’ occur, Nick had put Clint on vacation. 

Which lasted all of a day. 

He can’t blame them for wanting some time to relax. Still, they  _ do _ have a job to finish, and no matter that he can see a map with tourist locations circled around the state, until that alien armor suit is officially handed off Clint and Phil--and Bucky, now--are on-duty. 

Rubbing his forehead, he dreads the fight he knows is coming, because after this week, he just wants things to go easy for a change. 

(Clint, naturally, not only forgets to put on the sun block, but falls asleep outside. He gets burned pretty badly and whines all evening as Bucky rolls his eyes. Phil ignores it until Clint gives him a pleading look and, finally, he gives in. Grabbing the aloe vera, he indicates Clint should roll over, and the man does with a groan and hissing noises. 

Those turn into moans at the first drops of cool moisturiser on his back. Phil keeps his touch light and Clint seems to doze. He’s about halfway through when, with a smug tone, he slurs, “Knew you wanted to put your hands on me.”

Phil narrows his eyes, and gives Clint’s shoulder a light slap. 

The manager calls to complain about the howls coming from their room, Clint’s from pain, and Bucky’s from laughter.)

* * *

Phil likes his routines. It’s rare he gets to execute them because of his lifestyle, but when the opportunity arises, either on his days off or because of a long-term assignment, he likes falling into a slightly-predictable schedule that people unconsciously set their clocks to. In his more cunning moments, he deviates slightly, and makes note of who notices. He’s found some of his best agents that way. 

He still gives Agent Amador grief for covertly following him on one of those days. She’d been utterly convinced the deviation was because he’d been replaced or compromised, and when he confronted her she was humiliated, but stood her ground. He took her under his wing after that, and she’s now one of the few agents able to put up with Clint and Bucky’s bull. 

This time, though, he’s had no thoughts of deviation or acting slightly off. He’s not the only one looking for deviations, because in this building, even the most minute shift could mean the difference between success or failure on this mission. He’s in a remote facility in New York, near Times Square but far from the main SHIELD office in the hopes that proximity will add to their deception. SHIELD’s undergoing an audit, and has opened a records facility to accommodate. That’s the official story, and as the Director’s good eye, of course Phil’s in charge of overseeing the audit. 

And, to anyone walking in the building that’s what they’d find. Even investigating random floors, that’s exactly what it appears to be. 

Only the really savvy would discover the five additional seconds it takes for an elevator to pass from floor nine to floor ten, that the stairwell between those levels had an extra landing but no door. The hidden floor is where Phil spends most of his days, with a facility that’s half a warehouse being converted into a sound stage and half covered with the most advanced medical equipment outside of Stark Industries. All watched by their top security personnel, Phil and Nick’s personally trained best men and women guarding the discovery of the century. 

Captain America. 

There’s a part of him, the fanboyish, Smithsonian-loving side that is absolutely giddy at getting to watch over this legend come back to life before his eyes, day by day, week by week. The doctors are estimating at least another month before his body will have recovered enough to risk waking him up. Phil’s pushing to let the man sleep as much as he needs. Nick, of course, is pushing to hurry things up before the World Council actually discovers what they’ve got going on here.

Stepping onto floor nine and three-quarters--Maria thinks she’s funny, picking up Clint’s sense of humor--an agent hands him a tablet with the daily updates. Jasper takes the night shift and is well aware, after all these years, of how much Phil appreciates status updates first thing when he steps in. It shows the standard details on Rogers’ status, his heart rate steadily increasing and his body another two degrees warmer. An agent pausing on that faux platform in the stairwell, a facial expression of curiosity caught on camera. Jasper has already re-assigned the woman to the Greenland branch archives.

A thirty-six second blip in security monitoring at four-oh-six am. 

Phil furrows his brow. That should have raised a million alarms. Jasper should’ve been on the phone with him immediately. Instead, there’s a note that the glitch was identified and handled. 

That’s...odd. So much so that Phil stops at the threshold into the Captain’s room and stares at the tablet, trying to determine if he should call Jasper or Nick first. 

He glances up while he’s debating, checking on the Captain, then stops and looks up again.  _ Identified and handled, _ he recalls.  _ That jackass. _

Like when he left last night, Captain America is in a warming brine bath, mask and nasal cannula still hooked up to his face as he’s brought back to average body temperature. He’s still got some of the uniform on, though parts are slowly snapping off as the water temperature changes. It’s been so damaged that the suit is unsalvageable, and Phil is spending some of his hours designing a new uniform for when the Captain awakens. 

The equipment monitoring him is still hooked up as well, and even his brief glance has confirmed that all of the screens are showing the correct data, are matching the status update he’d read only moments ago. 

However, where before there were four bodyguards in the corners of the room, there are none. Instead, there are two people. One is perched on a stool beneath the observation window, the perfect placement for maximum sightlines of the room. Phil should know, he chose that position for his desk for that reason. Shifting his gaze--yes, all of his paperwork has been looked through and sloppily recompiled. They wanted him to know it’s been gone through. 

The second person is standing over Rogers’ bed, one hand clenching the edge of the bath so hard his knuckles are white. The other arm is being held tauntly behind his back. It’s the face though, the barely concealed snarl of lips and accusing eyes that has Phil putting the tablet aside and bracing himself. 

Phil and Nick had argued for hours, before finally settling on telling Clint and Bucky nothing. Clint, because for all he can keeps secrets, he’s not very good at it when it comes to Bucky. And Bucky...it boiled down to them not wanting to give him false home. Even if he successfully defrosts, there’s no guarantee there’ll be no brain damage, that he’ll still be the Steve Rogers he remembers. 

Their decision is, obviously, about to bite Phil on the ass. 

Not to mention cause a security nightmare once it’s realized they’re here. 

Bucky doesn’t say anything, letting the hefty silence speak for him. Clint is giving him the thousand yard stare he uses when sizing up a target. Phil gives them a minute, two, then shifts to the side and tilts his head to the door. Neither of them move at first, until Bucky, eventually, marches away. Clint prowls after him. Neither look him in the eye, but both are exuding barely-restrained violence. 

Phil makes sure the door is firmly shut on the sleeping Captain before turning to face the two men and standing at parade rest himself. “Barton. Barnes.” He keeps his voice neutral, non-confrontational. 

Bucky hisses, “You son of a  _ bitch! _ ”

“Not cool, bossman.” The words are light, but Clint’s tone is laden with disdain. 

“For the record, I was firmly in the ‘tell you’ camp.” He meets both of their gazes briefly. “The Director thought it best to see how well he recovered-- _ if _ he recovered--before letting you know he’d been found.”

“Not his call,” Bucky growls. “Steve isn’t yours and isn’t  _ SHIELD’s _ ! He’s  _ my _ friend and  _ I’ll  _ take care of him! Fuck you and your agency!”

Phil lets out a sigh. “I said you’d say that.”

“Then your first call should’ve been to me,” the man practically roars.

“And when you went tearing out of the meeting to come here, alerting all and sundry that this was  _ not _ just a records office? When SHIELD’s enemies came to sniff around?”

Bucky snarls. “I’m the Winter Soldier. What do you  _ think?! _ ”

“I think you know now. I think you also know the  _ last  _ thing I’d do is let any harm come to Captain Rogers.”

“It’s not your job to look out for him! It’s  _ mine! _ ” He shoves Phil harshly. “It’s always been my job to watch out for that punk and you try and  _ steal it-” _

“Woah, hey,” Clint sticks an arm between them and catches Bucky’s attention. “I don’t think Phil’d do that.”

“He didn’t tell me!”

“Didn’t tell me either. Doesn’t mean he’s trying to  _ replace  _ you, buddy. Steve’s not even awake yet.”

“If he wakes up.” That has both of them staring at him. “We’re optimistic,” Phil continues, “but it’s all unknown. His body may recover, but it’s possible his mind…” Bucky takes a stumbling step back. “ _ That’s _ why I agreed, Bucky. He may not be the Steve Rogers you knew.”

“I...I don’t  _ care! _ ” His mechanical arm clenches into a fist. “Fuck you, Phil! Fuck you and fuck SHIELD! You had  _ no right- _ ”

“How optimistic?”

Bucky goes silent at Clint’s laden question, but Phil shrugs. “It’s all guesswork. His body is warming up, and it appears the serum prevented ice from forming and puncturing the cell walls in his body. The blood-brain barrier appears to be functioning, but we can’t do anything invasive to confirm until...well,” he shrugs again. 

Clint reaches out to rest a reassuring hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “How optimistic,” he repeats. 

Phil eyes them both, then looks Bucky straight in the eye. “Sixty-eight percent that he’ll survive the defrosting. Twenty-three to thirty-one percent that he’ll recover with little to no damage to his mental faculties.” 

Bucky’s legs go out from under him, and Phil ducks forward to help Clint keep him upright. At least, he does until a mechanical arm forcibly shoves him away and back into the wall hard enough that he falls to the floor. Clint’s head snaps up but Phil waves him off. He can understand Bucky not wanting him nearby at the moment, and the shove, though violent, wasn’t nearly as rough as it could’ve been. 

Instead, Phil keeps himself seated on the floor as Bucky kneels and hides his face in Clint’s chest. It’s silent, but Phil would bet his last dime the man is crying. And this,  _ this  _ is why Phil agreed in the end. Bucky’s had so much pain in his life, so much abuse and loss, that Phil agreed, if they could keep  _ this _ pain from him, from losing his best friend a second time…

It takes nearly twenty minutes before Bucky pulls away from Clint. The only sign of his outburst is the redness in his eyes and the damp patches on Clint’s shirt. “I don’t care,” Bucky finally says. “If he’s...even if he’s a vegetable, it’s  _ my _ job to watch out for him.”

Phil nods. “I know. Regardless of Nick’s orders, if he’d woken up, my first call  _ would’ve _ been to you.” 

Bucky shuts his eyes, but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge he heard him. 

“So,” Clint leans back on his haunches, “what now?”

“Now, I call Jasper and ream him a new one for not warning me.” He lets out a breath. “And I’ll update the security arrangements, since I assume you’ll be keeping watch now?”

“I’m days, Clint’s nights,” Bucky orders. Doesn’t suggest,  _ orders. _ Clint just shrugs at it. “Not leaving him again.”

Phil nods, even as he tries to figure out how to tell the Director of the change in plans. They’re going to also have a long discussion on how to handle the Captain potentially waking up. Bucky won’t be kept out of the room for that. Phil can only hope they find a way to make sure it goes smoothly. 

And that Bucky eventually forgives him. 

(In the end, it’s a pretty simple scenario. Steve Rogers wakes up to Bucky Barnes by his bedside, one arm missing and a story about being a POW. Rogers doesn’t believe it. Maybe because he can see the aging in Barnes’ face, or maybe it’s the radio in the background, or maybe it’s how the nurse enters and says hello. Whatever the reason, Rogers socks Bucky in the eye and runs out the door. 

Clint trips him and the Captain falls flat on his face. 

“Such a god-damned punk,” Bucky says as he gets to the door. Steve rolls over but Bucky quickly moves above him and falls to his knees, trapping Steve’s stomach between his legs. Steve freezes while Bucky glares at him. “If I have to sit on you until you’re better, I will. Like that winter in ‘39 when you refused to stay in bed.” 

“You…” Rogers’ eyes travel from Bucky to Clint to Bucky, “You can’t be…” His voice is wavering between hope and anguish.

“With you till the end of the line, Stevie. It’s just...taken a while for us to get back on the same track.”

Rogers keeps staring, then, hesitantly, he reaches up and hovers a hand over the stump of Bucky’s arm. Another minute passes, and then the man has surged up and wrapped his arms tight around Bucky’s midsection, face buried in his chest and the sound of sobs obvious over the microphones. 

Phil tells the agents nearby to stand down and leave the trio alone. 

Not exactly according to plan, but the headache was  _ definitely _ worth it.)

* * *

The thing about dying that no one tells you is, after seeing your life flashing before your eyes, after your final words, after the room goes dark, it gets very, very,  _ very _ boring. You’re in a form of sensory deprivation, suspended in a perpetual state between awareness of the world and complete departure. 

It’s probably only seconds, maybe minutes, to the living. To Phil, though, it feels like so, so much longer. 

And then finally,  _ finally _ , there’s light. Such a bright, warm light, and soft voices, dulcet and enticing, encouraging him to come towards it, to embrace it. He does and his whole skin tingles, a million billion blunt pins briefly pressing against every part of his body. It’s almost soothing, transcendent. 

Then his chest explodes like an alien burst out of it. 

Like Loki’s blade did. 

It hurts like a mother fucker and he  _ screams! _

He blacks out.  _ Again. _ He’s rather disappointed if this is the afterlife. He didn’t necessarily expect anything, but all this blankness is rather dull. With a mental sigh, he starts singing songs from Captain America! The Musical. It was a poorly thought-out piece of off-Broadway tripe, but being the fan he is, Phil knows every single note and stage cue. 

The tingling sensation returns shortly after the intermission song, and he braces himself, only to find his chest throbs, but isn’t about to kill him again. There’s voices, too, but not the ones from before. No, but they’re familiar, so, so familiar. He reaches out, because last he knew Clint was still in Loki’s thrall. He reaches and reaches and…

“Bucky, come on, let’s get some rest.”

“Not leaving till Clint leaves.”

“Not leaving,” Clint mutters. 

“Hear that Stevie?”

“I’ve half a mind to carry both of you out.”

With a croak, Phil says, “Please don’t.”

They all shout at once and two hands grab his. One is metal and warm, the other has familiar archery calluses. With a lot of effort, Phil slits his eyes open. Clint is there, dark circles under his eyes and a palor complexion that means he hasn’t slept or eaten well for days. Bucky’s there too, disheveled and just as exhausted. Captain America, standing at the foot of his bed, looks the best of the three, though he too seems to have a great burden hanging on him. 

“What happened?”

“You died you fucking bastard,” Clint wheezes. “You went and faced Loki and you  _ died. _ ”

“Fury used a cryo-unit,” Bucky explains. “Refused to let Thor take Loki home until you were better.”

“Loki,” he chokes out.

“Spent six months in his own cryo unit. Went home three days ago.”

“We’re glad to see you better, sir,” Rogers says. 

“Most miserable six months since I joined,” Clint complains, still clutching Phil’s hand. 

“It was a real pain in the ass,” Bucky tosses in, “taking care of shit without you. Making sure this one,” he jerks his chin towards Clint, “eats.”

“Asshole. You were just as bad.” Clint can’t stop staring at Phil. “It was a real headache without you here, Phil.”

Phil lets out a huff. “Revenge.”

“Fuck you, sir,” Clint and Bucky say simultaneously. 

Rogers puts his head in his hands. 

(Rehab is a bitch in and of itself. SHIELD sets him up with their specialists, then Stark sets him up with the third best in the world--”What, you want the first best? He’s on a retreat in China learning, I don’t know, chi lines or something.”--and he spends the next four months regaining his strength and learning what he’s missed in the last half-year. 

He also spends the time bonding with Steve Rogers while Bucky and Clint run around on his every whim. It’s flattering, and he can’t help but smirk every time he hears them swear under their breath at some of his requests.

“Is it usually like this,” Steve asks about a month in. Bucky had just stared at the stack of forms re-declaring Phil alive, all of which needed re-reading to ensure no typos or missed signatures, and wandered off with the work scowling. 

“Usually it’s the other way around.” At Steve’s tilted head, he does a half-shrug and only winces a little. “Bucky and Clint are a handful. Now I am. Shoe, other foot, etc.”

Steven nods in understanding. “Yeah,” he smiles softly, “I remember that.”

Phil smiles back, then lets a little deviousness enter his grin. “So Steve, Bucky’s told some interesting tales about about your army days…”)

**Author's Note:**

> You can now follow me on tumblr @ cypherca.tumblr.com for updates on fics and original works.


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